Name: Dr. Jo Varshney
Business Name: VeriSIM Life, Inc
Location: San Francisco, USA
Establishment (Year): 2017
Category: Health & Wellness
Profession/ Specialty: Pharmaceuticals
Website: www.verisimlife.com
Social Media: Linkedin
Company Detail:
With an average timeline of 13 years for drug discovery and development, millions of dollars and lives are lost due to failed drug candidates and diseases that go untreated. At VeriSIM Life, the mission is to mitigate these losses by eliminating inaccuracy and waste when translating drug candidates to clinical trials using leading-edge technology that predicts patient outcomes.
To realize this vision, a first-in-class AI-driven bio-simulation platform was developed by world-class experts over several years of R&D, combining machine learning, mechanistic modeling, secure data storage, and massive computational power. By providing insights to prioritize the most informative experiments much earlier in the drug development process, this platform allows for translating, scaling, and accelerating drug development insights and de-risking R&D decisions by predicting the clinical benefits before human trials.
Unique Selling Proposition or Competitive Advantage:
Traditional drug design and development is fraught with trial and error. Scientists working on one aspect of a drug candidate--say its formulation--are often siloed from the scientists working on multiple other aspects, like its potential toxicity or bioavailability. And so is the data. Add to this the ethical concerns and high cost of animal experimentation to confirm hypotheses (but often do not translate well to humans regardless), and 9 drugs out of 10 fail once they go into clinical trials.
VeriSIM Life uses AI and other techniques to unify data and knowledge for a better holistic understanding of biology. This helps reveal the "blind alleys" early in a drug's development lifecycle and guides scientists quickly to the best compounds, formulations, dosing, and experiments. As a result, clients can reduce their preclinical R&D by 50% and lower the risk of bringing a new drug from bench to bedside.
Challenges Faced During the Journey:
Born to a pharmacological pedigree in India, Dr. Jo Varshney was introduced to the world of drug development and research at a young age. Seeing the role of animal testing in the drug discovery process fostered a desire to advocate for animals, which was pursued through veterinary medicine.
In 2010, Varshney came to the United States to study comparative pathobiology/oncology, genomics, and bioinformatics. Over the next six years, novel microRNA biomarkers and 3D bone models were developed, conducting NGS-small RNA sequencing and whole transcriptome analysis. But the research also revealed a troubling reality about helping patients. It was realized how difficult it is to translate from the lab to clinical trials, and thought there must be a better way. That was the genesis for the idea that became VeriSIM Life.
As if founding a disruptive biotech isn’t enough, Varshney is raising 2 children under 4 years old and is an active advisor in the Bay Area’s local STEM community. Growing up in India, entering the STEM field as a woman of Indian descent, enduring bullying, discrimination, and sexism seemed to come with the territory. But persistence, grit, and staying humble has led to pursuing solving one of society’s hardest problems.
Success is credited in part to the martial art of Muay Thai. Varshney learned the physically and mentally challenging discipline as a little girl. Muay Thai training helped Varshney start VeriSIM Life as a solo founder. Today it is believed that it's helped persist to raise capital, hire incredible talent, and sustain a business through difficult macro-economic headwinds.
Advice for Women Entrepreneurs:
The past couple of years has taught courage–courage to work through a pandemic, courage to endure financial stress, and courage to take on hard problems. Many are not alone in this! So, the one piece of advice to share is to lean into that courage with customers.
One of the customers recently challenged VeriSIM Life to take on a project they really didn’t know could be handled. It was in an emerging area of biologic therapy that frankly the scientists had limited experience with. But knowing that the tech is strong and that the talent is capable of much more than what they’ve already accomplished, collective courage was found to deliver for the customer. And they were blown away with the results. Be courageous!
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